Scarletwine
New Yorker
This takes the cake.
Talk about inbed with the media. I can't believe the lengths this admin will go exploiting 9/11.
It makes me much more sick than the GI Joe landing with the padded crotch shot.
I read another article yesterday but didn't take it seriously.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16735
9/11 Propaganda, Hollywood Style
By Danny Schechter, MediaChannel.org
September 8, 2003
"In an age when actor Arnold Schwarzenegger embodies a growing convergence between the worlds of movies and politics in one hulking frame, entertainment-oriented media once again manifests their power to influence what we think.
There was a good reason that Time magazine described the coverage of the war on Iraq as "militainment," and there is a good reason that the Bush Administration is turning to Hollywood to embellish the president's declining popularity. Their latest preemptive strike takes form of a movie packaged to remake the historical record on the 9/11 attacks and reelect Bush at the same time."
With the networks all downplaying the real-world events planned for the second anniversary of 9/11, it is not accidental that a made-for-TV movie is likely to draw most of our attention this time around. This is the story behind the making of a cable movie titled "DC 9/11: Time of Crisis," a well-made and insidiously persuasive docu-drama that airs Sunday Sept. 7th on Showtime, a movie channel owned by Viacom, the company that runs MTV, VH-1 Comedy Channel, Nickelodeon and so much more."
...
"So move over Madonna and the Rug Rats and even Leni Riefenstahl, Viacom presents our latest TV superstar: President George W Bush as produced by Karl Rove. the president's in-house Machiavelli, with the help of Lionel Chetwynd, a Republican toady, screenwriter and producer. The production includes the cast of Star Trek, a comedian known for his role as "the ripper," and financial subsidies from Canada where this pro-American patriotic epic was actually made to avoid paying union wages."
...
"And so as your client's ratings began to fall, as Iraq transitioned from the great victory to an unmanageable mess, all the patriotic slogans and political rhetoric began to lose their magic. Soon, the best thing you had working for you was the disarray among the democrats.
But, no fool you, Karl, you had a media card up your sleeve. You had planned for this contingency. You knew well how media and political interests are entwined in a political system that has become a media-ocracy in which candidates need media attention and media companies need access and favorable legislation
Media is power and using media well projects power. As the New Yorker's media writer Ken Auletta put it most succinctly, "Communications is the United States' fastest-growing industry, and is highly dependent on the government's favor." To curry favor and promote their interests, media outlets would soon be favoring the government. "
...
"Rove knew his resume. Chetwynd had produced TV movies and documentaries on POW's at the Hanoi Hilton, Kissinger and Nixon, the Bicentennial, Eisenhower, Carl Foreman, Tom Clancy's "Net Force Bloody Winter," "The Man Who Captured Eichmann," "Ruby Ridge: An American Tragedy" and the Bible. He also did "The Heroes of Desert Storm" and was brought in to finish the "Movie of the Week" lionizing New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani after it was decided that the original script did not portray him uncritically enough.
All of his films including his latest, a holocaust thriller about an American Schindler, "Varian's War" have had questions raised about their accuracy. Daryl Miller's review in the LA Times called it "A mess of a movie that leaves viewers with more questions than answers about Varian Fry ... Clumsily constructed and hollowly acted, it's a project that its lead performers ? William Hurt and Julia Ormond ? along with Barbra Streisand's Barwood Films, should quickly try to bury in their resumes ... Writer-director Lionel Chetwynd fudges a lot of facts."
...
"Richard von Busack of Silicon Valley's weekly newspaper explained how this product is structured: "'DC 9/11: Time of Crisis' will follow the attack from the Washington, D.C., perspective, beginning with the attacks and ending with George W. Bush's speech of revenge on Sept. 20. In what some might see as a disturbing blend of documentary and dramatic reenactments, actual news footage of the Twin Towers and Pentagon attacks will be woven in with the drama of Bush's flights around the country on the fateful day and the comments he made as he went."
...
"DC 9/11" illustrates the direction our propaganda system is taking because it is also the direction that our news system is already headed. More storytelling instead of journalism. More character-oriented drama. More narrative arcs. More blurring of the line between fiction and truth.
"DC 9/11: Time of Crisis" is also a sign of the crisis in our media system. Made by a "liberal company," it may help reelect a conservative president. It is the latest tool in the media drift to the right, but it is not the last."
The article also has some interesting background on th elobbying of the FCC for media relaxation.
Talk about inbed with the media. I can't believe the lengths this admin will go exploiting 9/11.
It makes me much more sick than the GI Joe landing with the padded crotch shot.
I read another article yesterday but didn't take it seriously.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16735
9/11 Propaganda, Hollywood Style
By Danny Schechter, MediaChannel.org
September 8, 2003
"In an age when actor Arnold Schwarzenegger embodies a growing convergence between the worlds of movies and politics in one hulking frame, entertainment-oriented media once again manifests their power to influence what we think.
There was a good reason that Time magazine described the coverage of the war on Iraq as "militainment," and there is a good reason that the Bush Administration is turning to Hollywood to embellish the president's declining popularity. Their latest preemptive strike takes form of a movie packaged to remake the historical record on the 9/11 attacks and reelect Bush at the same time."
With the networks all downplaying the real-world events planned for the second anniversary of 9/11, it is not accidental that a made-for-TV movie is likely to draw most of our attention this time around. This is the story behind the making of a cable movie titled "DC 9/11: Time of Crisis," a well-made and insidiously persuasive docu-drama that airs Sunday Sept. 7th on Showtime, a movie channel owned by Viacom, the company that runs MTV, VH-1 Comedy Channel, Nickelodeon and so much more."
...
"So move over Madonna and the Rug Rats and even Leni Riefenstahl, Viacom presents our latest TV superstar: President George W Bush as produced by Karl Rove. the president's in-house Machiavelli, with the help of Lionel Chetwynd, a Republican toady, screenwriter and producer. The production includes the cast of Star Trek, a comedian known for his role as "the ripper," and financial subsidies from Canada where this pro-American patriotic epic was actually made to avoid paying union wages."
...
"And so as your client's ratings began to fall, as Iraq transitioned from the great victory to an unmanageable mess, all the patriotic slogans and political rhetoric began to lose their magic. Soon, the best thing you had working for you was the disarray among the democrats.
But, no fool you, Karl, you had a media card up your sleeve. You had planned for this contingency. You knew well how media and political interests are entwined in a political system that has become a media-ocracy in which candidates need media attention and media companies need access and favorable legislation
Media is power and using media well projects power. As the New Yorker's media writer Ken Auletta put it most succinctly, "Communications is the United States' fastest-growing industry, and is highly dependent on the government's favor." To curry favor and promote their interests, media outlets would soon be favoring the government. "
...
"Rove knew his resume. Chetwynd had produced TV movies and documentaries on POW's at the Hanoi Hilton, Kissinger and Nixon, the Bicentennial, Eisenhower, Carl Foreman, Tom Clancy's "Net Force Bloody Winter," "The Man Who Captured Eichmann," "Ruby Ridge: An American Tragedy" and the Bible. He also did "The Heroes of Desert Storm" and was brought in to finish the "Movie of the Week" lionizing New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani after it was decided that the original script did not portray him uncritically enough.
All of his films including his latest, a holocaust thriller about an American Schindler, "Varian's War" have had questions raised about their accuracy. Daryl Miller's review in the LA Times called it "A mess of a movie that leaves viewers with more questions than answers about Varian Fry ... Clumsily constructed and hollowly acted, it's a project that its lead performers ? William Hurt and Julia Ormond ? along with Barbra Streisand's Barwood Films, should quickly try to bury in their resumes ... Writer-director Lionel Chetwynd fudges a lot of facts."
...
"Richard von Busack of Silicon Valley's weekly newspaper explained how this product is structured: "'DC 9/11: Time of Crisis' will follow the attack from the Washington, D.C., perspective, beginning with the attacks and ending with George W. Bush's speech of revenge on Sept. 20. In what some might see as a disturbing blend of documentary and dramatic reenactments, actual news footage of the Twin Towers and Pentagon attacks will be woven in with the drama of Bush's flights around the country on the fateful day and the comments he made as he went."
...
"DC 9/11" illustrates the direction our propaganda system is taking because it is also the direction that our news system is already headed. More storytelling instead of journalism. More character-oriented drama. More narrative arcs. More blurring of the line between fiction and truth.
"DC 9/11: Time of Crisis" is also a sign of the crisis in our media system. Made by a "liberal company," it may help reelect a conservative president. It is the latest tool in the media drift to the right, but it is not the last."
The article also has some interesting background on th elobbying of the FCC for media relaxation.